hadoop fs -text file returns "text: Unable to write to output stream."

Question

I have some files on the HDFS, and I try to use command

hadoop fs -text filename | head -10

after exec the command, it always returns the first 10 lines to the terminal, and it's what I want, but it always returns a line "text: Unable to write to output stream." attached to it, I feel very confused about what the attached line means.

Answer 1

I am assuming you are trying to read a compressed file. Anyhow head closed the stream after it read its limit hence, hadoop throw'ed a warning saying "text: Unable to write to output stream." because head has already closed the stream to which hadoop's text is trying to write to.

Take a look at this related answer as well.